United States v. Balal Choudhary , 672 F. App'x 298 ( 2017 )

UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 16-4234
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff - Appellee,
v.
BALAL THEO CHOUDHARY, a/k/a Paco Choudhary,
Defendant - Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern
District of North Carolina, at Wilmington. Malcolm J. Howard,
Senior District Judge. (7:15-cr-00077-H-1)
Submitted: November 18, 2016 Decided: January 5, 2017
Before WYNN and HARRIS, Circuit Judges, and HAMILTON, Senior
Circuit Judge.
Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
Thomas P. McNamara, Federal Public Defender, Eric J. Brignac,
Assistant Federal Public Defender, Raleigh, North Carolina, for
Appellant. John Stuart Bruce, United States Attorney, Jennifer
P. May-Parker, First Assistant United States Attorney, Phillip
A. Rubin, Assistant United States Attorney, Raleigh, North
Carolina, for Appellee.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
PER CURIAM:
Balal Theo Choudhary pled guilty to possession of a firearm
by a convicted felon, 18 U.S.C. §§ 922(g)(1), 924(a)(2) (2012),
possession of cocaine and marijuana with intent to distribute,
21 U.S.C. §§ 841(a)(1), (b)(1)(C) (2012), and possession of a
firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime, 18 U.S.C.
§ 924(c)(1) (2012). He received a sentence within his advisory
Sentencing Guidelines range of 140 months’ imprisonment.
Choudhary now appeals, claiming that his sentence is
substantively unreasonable. We affirm.
We review a sentence “under a deferential abuse-of-
discretion standard.” See Gall v. United States, 552 U.S. 38,
41 (2007). When reviewing for substantive reasonableness, we
“examine[] the totality of the circumstances to see whether the
sentencing court abused its discretion in concluding that the
sentence . . . satisfied the standards set forth in [18 U.S.C.
§] 3553(a) [(2012)].” United States v. Mendoza-Mendoza, 597
F.3d 212, 216 (4th Cir. 2010). If the sentence is within the
correctly calculated Sentencing Guidelines range, as it is here,
we presume that the sentence is substantively reasonable.
United States v. Louthian, 756 F.3d 295, 306 (4th Cir. 2014).
This presumption is rebutted only if the defendant shows “that
the sentence is unreasonable when measured against the § 3553(a)
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factors.” United States v. Dowell, 771 F.3d 162, 176 (4th Cir.
2014) (internal quotation marks omitted).
Choudhary challenges the substantive reasonableness of his
sentence on the basis that his sentence was excessive in light
of his troubled upbringing and the fact that he was not a large-
scale drug trafficker. We conclude, however, that Choudhary has
not rebutted the presumption of reasonableness that we apply to
his within-Guidelines sentence. Louthian, 756 F.3d at 306.
Accordingly, we affirm the district court’s judgment. We
dispense with oral argument because the facts and legal
contentions are adequately presented in the materials before
this court and argument would not aid the decisional process.
AFFIRMED
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